Opinion Brief: Thursday, January 21, 2016

Tonight’s Opinion Brief is brought to you by the charity Samara Canada. Through non-partisan research and educational programming, Samara shines light on Canada’s democratic system and encourages greater political participation—to build better politics, and a better Canada, for everyone.
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Good evening, subscribers. For those taking notes: Old Rona Ambrose said Trudeau was trying to push marijuana on the nation’s vulnerable youth. New Rona says he’s not legalizing it fast enough. Old Tony Clement thought the long-form census was Big Government sticking its nose in. New Tony can’t imagine what Old Tony might have been smoking.

In short, it’s the great Post-Harper Policy Fire Sale — Everything Must Go! Michael Harris muses tonight on the wonderful spectacle of former Harper cabinet ministers embracing their inner hypocrite as they clean the gunk off the resumes in time for the leadership convention. “Before the last election, the Conservatives raised the ante and lowered the bar in their fight with Trudeau. Their ads, in Chinese and Punjabi, not only warned that Trudeau supported selling drugs to kids, but also backed the establishment of neighborhood brothels. It was all a steaming mound of party headquarters bullshit.”

Two pieces tonight on Trudeau’s innovation economy boosterism in Davos. Ilona Dougherty asks why the number of young inventors and innovators seems to shrinking yearly, and what can be done about it. “The 20-something billionaire ‘unicorns’ of the tech sector may be getting a lot of air time, but over the past century, we’ve seen a substantial decline in the original output of younger innovators.”

Tasha Kheiriddin drills down into Trudeau’s keynote speech and reminds the PM that, just as Stephen Harper couldn’t actually make Canada an “energy superpower”, it’s not really up to Ottawa to make Canada an “innovation superpower” either. “Should Ottawa have said, ‘Sorry Enbridge, regrets Suncor, you can’t put more money into the oilpatch. You have to build a widget plant in Ontario instead — even if it loses money’?”

And Daniel Muzyka and Glen Hodgson of the Conference Board of Canada argue that a nationwide infrastructure drive will only deliver the productivity Canada needs if governments resist the temptation to pick projects that look good politically. “While it’s easy to say and hard to do, possible political advantage should not be the driver for public infrastructure projects. Transparency, open consultation and independent review of funding and investment are needed.”